There MUST be a way to quickly draw an elevation symbol like the one pictured. I looked up an old thread but I think they were talking about a mark (or whatever you’d call it):
Hi! I did one of these myself, with some Grasshopper script inside the vaAnnotation object. I can post it if you like. It does not have this leader line, though. This you would have to add yourself.
If you did so, there would not be some comfy edit points, though, like in normal Rhino annotations.
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As @Eugen says, you can do this with a Grasshopper style. You can find information about how it here.
You can find already made Grasshopper styles in Food4Rhino. I think this one is the most similar one to what you need. You can import these Grasshopper styles like this.
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@Eugen Thanks Eugene! That would be helpful.
@alfmelbev That looks interesting/fun to build and there is a long weekend coming up. I don’t mind building/tweaking my own tools (prefer it actually as long as I have time). I’m just guessing a bit but I feel like VisualARQ might do well to include more of the basic’s out-of-the-box; maybe help it reach a wider audience. As of now I’m only using a few core features but once I get into it more I’ll have a better idea of what could be included. The default content doesn’t really come close to the program’s full potential.
Agreed! VA3?
ElevationMarks.val (66.3 KB)
vaElevationMarkElevation.gh (21.1 KB)
vaElevationMarkFloorplan.gh (23.9 KB)
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Thanks Eugen!!
Don’t forget: these are 3d objects (unlike elevation marks in say Revit or ArchiCAD), and they follow my own layer ‘system’ - which of course you could change in the style definition.
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Sure, we could add new objects to the library. Please, let me know which ones you would like to have.
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Thanks, appreciated!
Ideally, these symbols work also in Layout space (2D mode, so to say) and derive their information (if any) out of the underlying Detail - just like regular Rhino annotations. If so, they should also move with the Detail.
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The aforementioned height annotation symbols, for elevations and floorplans, but with ‘2D mode’.
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Grid lines, with some options for the line headers
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Label - could the one from Lands Design be used?
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Scale ruler. Should also work in Layout space, and be associateable to a Detail, with some graphic ‘flavors’ to choose from:
Thanks!
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I totally agree. Actually, VisualARQ is too expensive for its performance
To be honest I would have to draw the same building side-by-side in Revit and AutoCAD to really do a thorough job. I might do just that in the future. I’ve had really good success modelling parking garages in Rhino to much higher accuracy than is achievable in Revit (at least within a reasonable time frame that is, I’m sure it can be done in Revit but it’s sloooooooooow). This came up because I needed to quickly identify elevations on a plan view, where as before I would export sections to CAD, and use a block with an attribute within which there was a field for the Y-Coord of my elevation symbol (the section tools are working awesome by the way!!), long story short I only find things as I come across them. I have been meaning to try and “test drive” each and every feature within the program as to not peace-meal suggestions together one-at-a-time. I want to re-do a project I did in Revit (that turned into a black-hole-of-my-time disaster) and thereafter put together a full “review” or report. I’ll probably have that ready by VisualARQ 4 
.
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Hi @Eugen,
I have a few questions about your requests:
What do you mean with “2D mode”?
Do you mean a structural grid?
With ‘2D’ I mean Layout space. Like regular Rhino dimensions, symbols should be placeable on top of a Detail, and associated with objects inside the Detail.
Let’s recap:
Teaching Rhino some manners regarding architecture and documentation is the idea behind VisualArq, right? On the one hand there’s this really oldschool AutoCAD workflow, where everything is strewn across model space, no matter if 2D or 3D. On the other hand there is this Revit- or ArchiCAD-like workflow, where you derive an automatic 2D views out of the 3d data and draw on top of these.
Rhino is some kind of hybrid. You can work ‘freestyle’, or ‘disciplined’, and sometimes it even makes sense to go freestyle. But you will only get so far.
Thus, a ‘clean’ workflow should be perfectly possible, too, if needed, and for that the Layout space is the right place. That’s why annotations and symbols should work there, too.
Exactly.
A grid is pretty hard to emulate as of now, because it should always stay on top in a plan view. To achieve this, in model space, you would theoretically need to place a grid on every level, so that it does not disappear when the wrong levels are turned off. Not practical.
In layout space you could place the grid on top of a Detail (tried that already), but it won’t be associated with the model space in the Detail then, and likewise the 3d parts not to the grid (which by the way would be a desirable feature, too. Revit e.g. can link objects to grids. )
It will be interesting to see how you solve that one. Is it possible at all to display objects always on top? Draw order does not work with surfaces. ‘Hack’ the display pipeline somehow? Even more complicated if the grid was in model space and is seen through a Detail. Rhino unfortunately still has problems with the draw order of Detail views.
Thanks!
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Have you tried placing the grid (as long as they are curves) at the bottom of your model (in the model space) and running the BringToFront command on it? this should make it appear on top of your model in any plan view.
Yes, but what if I turn off all levels except the one I’m working on?
Edit: a solution could be that in your Level panel you allow to turn on levels that are not ‘neighbours’, which is not possible yet.
If it was, I could for example do this: I want to work in level 11 (of say 20). I put the grid under level -1, turn it on, then turn off levels 0-10, turn on level 11, and turn off all above 11.
Big thumbs up!!
Thank you, solves a lot!